One of the oldest Austrian noble families has a heartbreaking secret that has been hidden away in their vault for centuries. A young boy, maybe a year or two old at most, who passed away for reasons other than hunger or accident. Except for the fact that his skin desperately needs exposure to sunshine. The male infant’s mummified body was discovered in a vault belonging to the Counts of Starhemberg, suggesting that he had been buried there somewhere between the 16th and 17th centuries. His body, still draped in a costly silk robe, is tiny yet his features are still distinct and well-defined. His short life was marked by unhealthy choices despite his privileged upbringing.
CT scans performed as a virtual autopsy on the body revealed rib abnormalities consistent with common symptoms of malnutrition, in this case vitamin D insufficiency. The boy did not exhibit the characteristic bending of the legs seen in people with rickets.
They kept an open mind and explored another hypothesis, which was inadequate levels of vitamin C, leading to scurvy. Similarities between the rib deformations in the two circumstances prompted further study.
Analyses of the baby’s fat showed that he was significantly heavier than average for his age range (10-18 months). Therefore, experts hypothesize that the boy was well-fed during his patrician upbringing, reducing the likelihood of a vitamin C shortage. The infant was extremely malnourished not due to a lack of food, but due to a lack of sunlight, because vitamin D isn’t absorbed in large amounts from our diet but is instead created in the skin through chemical reactions that depend on ultraviolet (UV) radiation.
Obesity and severe vitamin deficiency go hand in hand, and they can only be explained by a combination of a generally “excellent” nutritional status and practically complete lack of sunlight exposure. Inadequate amounts of this substance, which plays a vital role in bone development during childhood, can lead to skeletal deformities. Over the course of a lifetime, it also improves the body’s ability to absorb calcium and phosphorus. Unfortunately for the Starhemberg baby, scientists didn’t discover the need of sun exposure for bone growth until the 19th century, during a widespread outbreak of rickets.
Since relatively few infant burials have been found in such good condition, the finding of the mummified newborn in Austria provides interesting insight into the life conditions of noble infants in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe. Avoiding sun exposure was a common practice among Europe’s aristocracy at the time in order to maintain the porcelain whiteness that was considered a mark of social status at the time. Sunbathing was reserved for the peasants and the working class.
